Crozier, a Union City Republican challenging incumbent Democrat Sandy Garrett, said he would put thick used textbooks under every desk for students to use in self-defense.

Crozier’s experiment began with shots fired at a calculus textbook from an AK-47 Russian-style assault rifle. The shot penetrated two textbooks at once. Shots from handguns were generally stopped by thick books.

“We need to look at protection of young people that sometimes people may think you are a little smarter than everybody else or a higher IQ or whatever,” Crozier said. “They need to look at what the end result would be.

“This would be to protect the children in an immediate situation. This is something that any student, any classroom in the country could do immediately,” he said.